European PMIs for September: It's a miss

German
Chancellor Angela Merkel walks with French President Francois
Hollande in the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, August 24,
2015.REUTERS/Axel
Schmidt

It's PMI day, and we're getting the first business surveys for
the month of September, indicating how economies around the world
are doing.

In Europe, we've got France, Germany and the whole of the
eurozone — we have to wait until the second reading to get a more
detailed breakdown. Remember, any figure above 50 signals growth
for a sector, and any figure below means a contraction.

Here's what we've got:

France: Services at 51.2, manufacturing at
50.4. That means a composite reading of 51.4, and the best
manufacturing result since June.

Germany: Services at 54.3, manufacturing at 52.5. The
composite PMI comes out with a score of 54.3. Those are all a
little weaker than expected.

Whole eurozone: Services fell from 54.4 to 54, and
manufacturing fell from 53.9 to 53.5. Composite at
53.9.

Here's what Jack Kennedy, Markit senior economist, said about the
French reading:

The French private sector eked out another month of modest growth
in September, with manufacturing making a meaningful contribution
to expansion for the first time in well over a year. However,
there was less positive news on the employment front, with
jobs being shed at the sharpest rate since November 2014. A
marked drop in service providers’ business confidence further
suggests that the general sluggishness in the economy is set to
persist in the foreseeable future.

And while the German reading was weaker than analysts projected,
some of the breakdown is still very promising. Here's Oliver
Kolodseike, one of Markit's economists:

New orders rose at the strongest rate in almost two years, with
companies benefiting from a positive economic environment and
improved demand from both domestic and foreign clients. Moreover,
the German jobs engine kept humming, as companies added to their
payrolls at a rate not seen since December 2011. The fact that
backlogs of work accumulated at the most marked rate for well
over four years adds further to signs that companies will remain
busy.